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How to write a great holiday greeting email

Phew … so, those big, frenetic sales days are almost over! Of course, there’s still X number of shopping days left ’til [enter holiday of your choice], and of course your seasonal strategy includes leveraging each one of those days to their maximum potential with a holiday greetings email, marketing tools, blog posts, newsletters, ads — the works.

But frankly, by this point, everyone has been bombarded with enough encouragement to part with their money. And it won’t let up until mid-January.

So the question remains: Should you send yet anotherholiday email to your audience? YES! You definitely should send a nice holiday or end-of-the-year greeting. It doesn’t have to be Christmas-, Hanukkah-, Solstice- or New-Year-themed. If specific affiliations make you uncomfortable, just tap into the fact that we’re all going through an annual shift and change — it’s a very appropriate time for reflection.

Skip the sales pitch

This is not your Black Friday email or Cyber Monday promotion. This is not even your altruistic and philanthropic Giving Tuesday appeal. This holiday greetings email is simply an opportunity to reach out to the folks who follow you and send them some bonafide holiday wishes from the heart.

Because of that “buy, buy, buy” bombardment that’s pelting everyone’s inboxes from “Trick or Treat” until “Auld Lang Syne,” it’s really important to punctuate your own season’s mailings with a short, simple pause (like the folks at South Arundel Veterinary Hospital). Wish your audience no-strings-attached happiness this season and thank them for being part of your tribe.

Don’t worry about stats

This is the one time we’ll tell you to not care about your engagement rates or where you links should be placed. Not to worry about conversions, or percentages, or growth. Rather than going after lots of “Likes,” “Tweets,” or “Pins” from your fans, it’s your turn to share goodwill with them. To think about what this time of year means to you; to reflect on your entire year passed, and how your fans and followers have played a part in everything that’s been.

Maybe you have a list of folks without whom you wouldn’t be where you are. Or maybe your successes this year are directly due to your loyal evangelists. Or maybe you just have some beautiful sentiments about the season that you want to share with people.

Try a holiday email greeting card

You can always go the traditional route and create a lovely, custom image or illustration to use as a greeting card. Something specially made, just for this occasion. See this nice example from Two Bright Lights.

Another thing you’ll only hear us saying right now is that it doesn’t even have to match your branding. Feel free to go outside your regular color scheme and shake up your holiday look! It also doesn’t have to be fancy, or complex.

Have some fun

A silly, funny, personalized greeting is sure to bring a smile to someone’s face and brighten their day. Remind these folks why they loved you in the first place! And don’t be discouraged if you’re not a professional Photoshop editor either — you can create an uproarious holiday greeting with some quick-and-dirty image editing. See this rapped up holiday greeting from the obviously hip folks at Cream Hotels.

Or, if you’re not so much into the editing, you can always just stage a funny picture with some holiday props.

Include relevant information or news (or not)

There’s definitely something kind of special about an email that is really just about saying thank you or Happy Holidays. But you don’t have to have the email be ONLY a holiday greeting, of course. You can always include relevant, topical information that your subscribers would also like to receive.

Are your office hours, school hours, or availability changing over the holidays? Make sure to let everyone know! It’s perfectly fine for your holiday greetings email to include that useful information, like in this seasonal note from Dicky Birds Nurseries. And of course, if you have some images from the year, include those, too!

Thank your tribe

You can share a year-in-review of everything that’s happened in 2014 — or all the good that you look forward to in 2015. Whether its backwards or forwards, your fans are always a part of it, so let them know that you appreciate their involvement.

Consider offering a thank-you gift or giveaway

Maybe you want to take this whole thank-you thing a step further! There are plenty of folks who send out a special holiday offer to sweeten that greeting even more, and you can always segment your lists by engagement to reach out to specifically active or responsive groups. Perhaps include a special holiday giveaway with a single link?

Now go write a holiday greetings email of your own!

Whatever style you choose, combine, or create for yourself, remember that there’s only one requirement for this email: tapping into the joy of the season and sharing that —along with a year’s worth of gratitude — with your readers.

Happy Holidays, Season’s Greetings, Happy New Year, and all the best in 2015 from all of us here at GoDaddy!

Mira Lynn is a Community Therapist at GoDaddy. Mira loves excellent beers, peeling labels off anything, and the Oxford comma. When she's not hopping between her many ports of call, she practices yoga, juggling, poetry, and impressing her sister. She came to GoDaddy from the world of design and dreams of being deputized by an elite detective agency.

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